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Saturday, 28 January 2017

When I first started my 18thC Imaginations project I spent a lot of time reading through existing blogs for other imaginary nation states. This was both great inspiration but also enabled me to make contact with a number of other gamers whose own projects were prime examples of the great fun and amazingly detailed backstories that could be dreamed up if you put your mind to it.

One individual I had a number of very rewarding interactions with was Bluebear Jeff of Saxe-Bearstein fame. Tragically, Jeff passed away last year after a long fight with illness. His passing left a big hole in the imaginary 18thC blogosphere and I've missed his enthusiasm, generosity and tremendously positive outlook.

When Jeff passed I decided I'd like to do something to remind me of his contribution to my own personal project, so I have recreated one of his regiments and they will continue to fight imaginary battles, displaying the same courage and strength in the face adversity which Jeff did in real life.

And so I present to you von Molson's Regiment, complete with Saxe-Bearstein ducal and regimental colours as imagined by Jeff...

These are 28mm SYW Austrians from Front Rank, painted as closely as I could to match their namesakes. This is Jeff's original regiment, not a bad match I think you'll agree...

So here's to you Jeff! Thanks for everything mate...Cheers,Millsy

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This is a really wonderful unit of figures Millsy, and a poignant tribute to your late friend, Jeff.

I think you've done a terrific job in creating a unit that is both themed to Jeff's original work, yet is still very much your own style. I really like the bright blue facings and turnbacks on these figures, and the regimental colours are superb, especially with the contrasting flag cords.

I think you've done your friend great honour with these lads. Well done.

In a shameless bid for the coveted Sarah's Choice, I present some women from Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow in 1812.

The experience of women in Napoleon's invasion of Russia is very difficult to reconstruct, given the nature of our sources. Certainly hundreds of women at least accompanied the Grande Armée, ranging from officers' wives to cooks and providers of other services to the troops. They suffered terribly along with the men during the Retreat, and none more so than the unfortunate young mothers trying to protect their children, some of whom were born during the campaign. Memoirs written by (male) survivors of the retreat, such as that by General de Segur, often include poignant episodes of the suffering of women and children, and the efforts made to protect them.

Kudos to the Perry twins for not shying away from this aspect of the Retreat, but including a number of women in their figure range for 1812. They range from women acting as combatants, to those trudging wearily through the snow, as well as a young mother sitting in despair.

I have also included a vivandiere, from Westfalia Miniatures. She isn't really dressed for the Russian winter, but is too nice a figure to go unpainted.

Assuming the vignette of the cuirassier and his (perhaps) wife count as two figures, these should add 35 points to my total.

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Ahh, you've beat me to the punch on these Alan. I had a few of these models racked-up and ready to go, but as you've done such a marvelous job I think I'll quietly tuck them aside for another day.

What a poignant and themed entry. We've chatted in the past about the Perry's Retreat figures, and I think we both agree that they are probably the most evocative range of miniatures that the brothers have produced. The abject misery and suffering is so readily apparent in both their facial expressions and their postures. One looks at these castings and can almost feel the freezing wind and muscles ache at each laborious step taken through the snow and ice.

Your snow basework looks excellent and I like that you've added frost to the cuffs and hems of their clothing along with their faces and scarves. The entire set gives a snapshot of many of the emotions these women must have felt during the retreat from Russia, from terror to bitter resolve, misery to grim companionship. Really good work here.

As the title says, finally some 30k! The last couple of AHPCs have been brilliant for me to get a whole bunch of 30k stuff done. I had bought lots of it because I loved the setting - one of my first GW games was the original Epic boxed set (entitled "Space Marine") and that was all about the Horus Heresy and was the first we'd really learned about it in detail. So there was no way I was going to not do some 30kfor this one. I don't have quite so much of a pile ready to go, but I eventually settled upon a new legion..... the Thousand Sons.In the story of the Horus Heresy, they have a somewhat tragic role. When the Emperor set up the space marines, he bio-engineered each one of them a Primarch, each of them a virtual demi-god. The legions were built in their image as each was an archetype of one sort or another. Magnus, the Primarch of the Thousand Sons was a being with psychic powers second only to the Emperor himself. Magnus and his Legion were more psychically attuned than most and so were scholar warriors. The problem is that psychic powers are very closely linked to Chaos in the 30k/40k world and so the Emperor ended up forbidding his Marine legions from using psychic powers as he was worried about chaos and the influence of Daemons, but he didn't explain this to them......Magnus secretly defied the wish and discovered all this for himself. He then tried to warn the Emperor by sending a strong psychic message to get through the psychic storm the Chaos Gods had thrown up around Terra (Earth)..... but all the message achieved was to shatter the Emperor's psychic defences keeping Terra safe and so the Emperor, in a fit of pique, sent another space marine legion (the Space Wolves) to destroy the Thousand Sons..... all because they tried to help.Anyway, pseudo history lesson over, onto the figures! First up, the backbone of any legion - 20 tactical space marines with bolters.

One of the things I've always liked about doing fantasy and sci-fi armies is that you can put your personal mark on them (within reason) as there is no historical colour or uniform guide. I've also always loved converting models to make them my own and the GW range is unparalleled in it's ability to provide parts for conversions. To represent the Thousand Sons I added some pieces to their helmets from some High Elf archers, bought years ago for another project.

The Thousand Sons have an Ancient Egyptian vibe to them as well as being scholars and I felt this suited them and made them different from the other legions.

The decals all come form the fantastic sheet produced by Forgeworld, one shoulder pad is the legion symbol, the other is a rather fetching Egyptian god inspired head.

Next up are two Predator MBTs. These were nearly finished for the armour round, but not quite.

I added a crewman standing tall of the top in MkIV armour to ground them in the 30k universe as the models are the newer type, probably only just coming into service near the end of the Heresy (and also about 1/5 of the price of the official 30k ones from Forgeworld!)

In order to make them feel Thousand Sons, I added a bunch of decals and also some golden half globes with blue flame coming out as nothing says warrior mystics like blue flame does. Sort of like the 30k equivalent of the lava lamp. I also went for hieroglyphics on the turrets instead of numbers to denote the tanks. These two are snake and bird head of the scarab squadron.

And finally three dreadnoughts. These guys are the reason this post is so late as everything was going so well yesterday evening that I thought to myself "heck, I've got time to do these three too", showing the wargame painters usual knack of totally and utterly underestimating the time something will take to paint.....

For those who don't play 30k/40k, dreadnoughts exist to house what's left of warriors too destroyed to be rebuilt with cybernetic parts. The leftovers are encased in amniotic fluid in the middle of it and hardwired into the systems. These husks can never leave their dreadnoughts, but they can continue to fight.

I converted each of the fronts, but the heaviest conversion uses a mask from the "Tomb Kings" range, an army of undead based in GW's equivalent of ancient Egypt. At first I thought it might be too much, but if you're going to fight on in a coffin covered in guns when by rights you should be dead, you might as well do it in a fully pimped out ride

One of my mates is a rabid Space Wolf fan, so I decided on this legion to be ready when he gets around to painting all the 30k stuff he's bought.

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Here we go!! I was wondering when Jamie would enter the field in the 30K Duel with Greg, Iannick and Alex, and here's his first (staggering) volley.I like the red a gold colour scheme and I'm really impressed with your addition of extra bits from other 40K and Fantasy plastic sets. As you say, it really makes the figures your own and brings the whole force to life. I think my favourite model is the Drednought with the Tomb Kings mask - that just looks amazing (thought the blue-flame methane tanks are a close second :)).

This force will give you 180 points to add to your tally, Jamie, with a good bit added for your excellent modifications. Terrific work!

The first unit of the British forces comes off the painting table for the AWI Battle of Hubbardton project.

The 24th regiment was the only regular Foot unit for the British at the battle. The other units were converged light and grenadier companies. There are 36 - 10mm Pendraken figures (AWB21 and 38) in this submission. They have the Saratoga campaign cut-down tricornes and coats (lack of supplies forced them to do this for spare material for repair) and have dark-green facings.

This unit marks a milestone in the 20+ years since I started painting historical miniatures. I have painted a lot of horse and musket period miniatures, but this is the first unit of Redcoats to ever come off my painting desk. And there are more to come!

Next up another American unit for the Battle of Hubbardton project.Thanks for viewing my submission.

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20+ years of Horse & Musket and you've never painted Brits up to this point?! I don't know how that even happens... ;)

Geez, these are lovely. Such fine brushwork and excellent attention to detail. If someone had said they were 15s I would not have questioned them.

I can completely understand wanting to keep the colours with the unit. They would seem so incomplete without their brave banners waving above them. You did a great job on the base flag prints.These 36 fellows will give you 38 points, with a few extra added in for the need-to-have flags.Well done Tom!

This week I have two very different sets of figures, painted at two different levels.First up is a set of vikings that I decided to paint up as a start for SAGA after seeing all the cool stuff being done for it on this challenge. I picked these up probably 2 years ago to use as some figures for Frostgrave and then never got around to them.

They are from the Wargames Factory line and are really poor quality. The detail is all extremely soft, the cut lines are in bad places and don't line up very well. I got them cheap and split a box with a friend, I think they were $30
for 32 figures which was awesome, but you get what you pay for. While passable once painted, I found it pretty hard to spend much time on them since the quality was so poor.

I think I put about 20 minutes, maybe 30 per figure. So they are done to a super basic and super rough tabletop quality, and even though I painted them, they may be replaced with other figures later. I have some Gripping Beast Vikings and Anglo-Saxons on the way that I have seen previously and are much higher quality. The one good thing about these figures is they gave me a chance to try out some Little Big Men shield transfers, which worked amazingly well and I therefore have already gotten some more!

Secondly this week is a set of Ten Thunder archers from Malifaux that was one of my options for last weeks East theme. I had planned on using these up until about a week before the deadline, and then changed to my gladiator. These figures are amazing sculpts with great detail. They are super finicky to assemble as they are a lot of parts, but go together super clean and you can't even see where they join when done.

These started off as going to get a higher level paint job as they were for a theme round, where I aim to paint to at least high level tabletop and preferably show type levels. However since they got dropped from the theme round, I took a bunch of shortcuts on them, and while still nice (I really like the bright yellow with brown shading that I got done) they are only my normal tabletop level jobs.

Despite that, I do really like how they came out. The effect of the super bright yellow against the darker straps and arm guard really work. I also really love how the figures are sculpted with the faces barely visible behind screens that hang from the helm.

I did the bases to match the rest of my Ten Thunders Malifaux force, using resin bases that look like an oriental garden. I then added in some small leaves in fall colours to help tie in the bright costume to such a neutral base.

Well, that is 11 28mm figures complete for 55 points. As I said though, done at different painting levels, I just couldn't justify more time on those Vikings. I did the bare minimum to get them table worthy, but could make myself spend more time on them. The Malifaux guys, I would have spent more time to make them better but decided to put it into my Arena Rex gladiator instead. As they are they fit well with my existing Malifaux force so are painted well enough to be happy with.

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Great entry Byron. You and your 'tabletop quality'...

I feel your pain with the WF models. I've always found that their models come up wanting. Their detail and undercuts are rather soft and ill defined, and for multipart models their poses still end up being rather similar. But as you say you get what you pay for.The WF models above are sharply contrasted against the Malifaux examples you treat us with. Wow. Those are tremendously nice and you paintjob really is top shelf. I love the yellow that you've used for them and the wood of the longbows is fabulous. The added leaves are a very nice touch as well. They look like they should be on the set for 'Big Trouble in Little China'. :)

As announced on my last post, here are more Soviet infantry soldiers. This is a very repetitive type of paint job, but there will be some definite qualitative satisfaction to be had when fielding this quantity of units.

These are all Battlefront 15mm mid-war Strehlkovy and this is a whole company minus the officers and a few support weapons. I bought those 10 years ago and this project is now almost complete. Only a few SMG teams and officers need to be painted and then I will move on to the next project on my rigid, but satisfactory plan.There are 12 bases with 5 soldiers (60 figures) and 15 bases with 4 soldiers (60 figures) for a total of 120 figures. At 2 points each, I rake in 240 points.

For Stalin! This way to Berlin!

I personally like smaller scales for WW2, because I enjoy the feeling mass infantry running fearlessly towards their enemy (or their doom) on the table. Although 15mm has its limits. I remember a game against a German player where I had to deploy all my troops within 6 inches of the table edge. Because Soviet troops are so cheap, with all my troops side by side, including cavalry and battalion level artillery, I could cover every square inch of my 8 feet by 6 inches starting area. It really felt silly. But I have some new rule sets suggested by participants of this Challenge that I would like to try in the next few weeks.

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Like the Soviets of World War Two, the painting machine that is Sylvain, grinds relentlessly forward to his final goal. Terrific work, Sylvain! I agree with you about 15mm being great scale for WWII. The relative scale and ranges on the tabletop often seems to jive better than 28mm, though with your huge collection I can see where it may be a challenge to get it all on a tabletop, no matter what rules you use. :)

I would preferred a few more pictures of your work, but the sample you provide above really shows your clean brushwork and attention to detail (the wedge cap on the Soviet officer is particularly well rendered, with its red and yellow piping). 240 points it is! A formidable entry by any measure. Bravo Sylvain!

First up is the last 5 Goliath gangers to finish off my Necro gang. I had a blast with theses guys, now I just have to start playing some games.Next up is Commisuoner Gordon and some Swat guys from Knight models Batman the miniature game. Again lost of fun with these guys. Not quite happy with the swat on the shield. But it will do for now. I'm contemplating making a stencil for fixing it up later.

Next up is half of my skaven blood bowl team.with the rerelease of blood bowl, I though I should get these guys done. I had stripped them a few years back, but had no incentive to paint them up.

Lovely work Steve. Those Goliath gangers look pretty intimidating. Particularly nice job on the the skin tones and basework, it's very sharp. The one figure that really draws my eye though is your Commissioner Gordon. I love his trenchcoat and lenses on his glasses, he really looks the part of a tough-as-nails cop. Well done.